The Tribune

PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said he hopes by the time the country gets into election mode, the COVID-19 crisis would have ended to enable mass rallies and other typical campaign events.

“I think individuals would have looked around the world in terms of how campaigns would have been, how other countries would have campaigned…we would adjust our models accordingly,” he said.

“But at this point in time we can’t have any mass rallies, those kinds of things, but by the time we reach election mode or campaign, hopefully we would be outside the COVID pandemic and we will be somewhat back to normal.”

Dr Minnis, speaking to reporters in Abaco on Friday, was also asked to respond to criticism from Exuma and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper about the failure to enact campaign finance legislation.

“I think at some point in time I’d hope to see it come to fruition,” he said.

In the lead-up to the 2017 general election, Dr Minnis made campaign finance reform one of his signature planks.

Attorney General Carl Bethel told The Tribune in 2018 that he presented the Progressive Liberal Party with a draft bill, the Political Parties Registration and Election Financing Bill 2012, that sought to regulate the campaign finances of political parties. However, although both sides agreed the bill needed a lot of work, no progress was made in revising the draft.

Transparency and accountability activists have long called for campaign finance legislation. In 2012, former Prime Minister Perry Christie said campaign financing had sunk to “repugnant” and sometimes “criminal” levels.

However, his administration did not enact legislation to address those concerns.

The Organisation of American States, which observed this country’s election in 2012, recommended that campaign finance laws be implemented. At the time, the OAS concluded the matter seemed less important to Bahamian politicians than it did to other stakeholders in the country.

At a separate event on Friday, Dr Minnis also responded to comments from former Prime Minister Perry Christie who last week called for bipartisanship in the COVID-19 decision making process.

Dr Minnis told reporters Mr Christie was “absolutely right” in saying there should be unity, but he pointed out invitations have been extended to the opposition party to be involved.

“We’ve reached out on many occasions to the medical fraternity that is the medical community, the grouping that’s dealing with the pandemic,” Dr Minnis said.

“We’ve invited the opposition to participate in the presentation the same times as we were informed which meant they would have had just as much information as we would have and they could have given their insight at that particular point in time. They refused to come, so I hope Mr Christie would talk to them.”